Oxygen Thieves is another term I like for those individuals who get a kick out of being rude and vile while being protected by the anonymity of the internet. I’d dare the same juvenile cretins to speak to that guildie in that manner in real life. She’s near kill them, and frankly they wouldn’t dare. I’d also love to meet them in real life as well, and I get a kick out of the idea that someday one of these foul mouthed belligerent little recalcitrants might be interviewing with my company, and I can tell them to go home. Just stop the interview, and send them on their way.

Why is it blog worthy when it happens all the time in game?

I think Blizzard will do sweet fuck all about the harassment, and this is exactly the type of players I wish were doing something else. So instead I’m calling out the behaviour here as garbage. WoW should not tolerate this, and the players should get at least a few days ban, if not a month. If somebody can be sacked for writing the wrong thing into a message forum, then they certainly should be banned for harassing other players. That behaviour is illegal in Australia.

Now I know that these guys are essentially trolling this guild member, and a bit of attention from the internet is exactly the type of drama they might love. They got a rise from a player – well done, you’re special.

It is not hard to be offensive on the internet, and certainly does not differentiate the speaker from almost every other anonymous and rude internet screen-name. Nothing special about the behaviour and I suspect nothing essentially special about the people either.

I could say far worse things about these people and use language which was totally disgraceful, but instead I choose to smile and consider the karmic payback. I am sure that if their real life dealings are executed with the same disregard for civil interaction then they will be serving hamburgers to their peers for a very long time.

Funny thing too – a regular wow activity in game is grinding rep. Essentially getting factions to like you. Now given it is a means to an end, and that is a corner stone of the game – I think its odd that players would choose to ruin their reps, and the reps of their friends through their action but spend so much time pretending to be heroes. Pretending to be powerful and respected characters.

Perhaps they’d like to go play in the traffic. I wouldn’t swerve to hit them, but I’d watch.

Meeting up with friends is a big part of why I play MMO games, and on a lazy Sunday afternoon I had a new experience within the blogging community, where fellow bloggers reached out and said hello.

It started when an odd whisper arrived from a toon named Miniices. For the most part I don’t mind odd whispers, but I am wary of the gold beggars and time wasters who frequent the mailboxes and dancing poles. Sometimes I’m short with people because the waste time.

This was absolutely nothing like that, in fact it was the total opposite. There is a great blogger named Navimie, from The Daily Frostwolf and she collects bloggers by way of NaviSpam. Her style is to contact a blogger and get screen-caps and have discussion with them. I am honored that she wished to chat and get some screenshots with me.

How awesome is that! I am very chuffed.

Apparently because I’m hopping around between too many alts, I was a little tricky to find (heh 6x85s). Clever Navi send a message to our GM named Genowen (who is aka The Untamed Hellcat) and Gen assisted her by pointing out that I was fooling around on my Paladin named Diamon at the time; and then joined us for the meetup too.

We met, chatted, and then the obligatory screenshots began, and it was all dancing fun from there on. I can’t say I didn’t laugh seeing a Tauren, Blood Elf, Night Elf and Draenei /bow’ing, /cheer’ing and generally being silly with each other.

The girls got to chatting, but having a four month old child meant that I could not stay and banter with them. The experience has left me feeling impressed and happy. Meeting new folks is good, meeting new people where the respect and admiration is mutual is fantastic.